House Speaker Paul Ryan Thursday said he had an encouraging meeting with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump toward unifying the fractured conservatives but stopped short of endorsing the businessman who has emerged victorious from deeply polarizing primaries.
A joint statement issued after their meeting also raised a rallying point for the GOP officials and followers built on contesting election against likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “The United States cannot afford another four years of the Obama White House, which is what Hillary Clinton represents.”
The joint statement and remarks by Speaker Ryan at a Press briefing represented a climb down in position on part of both the politicians toward a compromise that united the GOP ranks for victory in the November 8 election.
The meeting had assumed much hype as Ryan had declined to express his endorsement of Trump last week and instead asked the billionaire business to unite the party. Both had previously expressed their difference on several issues.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, who will chair the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, also made it clear that he does not want a fake unification process.
Ahead of the meeting, Trump, who had vowed on the campaign trail to enforce a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the United States, called the proposal a mere suggestion.
But it is not clear what was Trump’s approach to the issue in conversations he had with Speaker and other Republican officials on the Capitol Hill.
The joint statement building on the goal of victory in the election said:
“That is why it’s critical that Republicans unite around our shared principles, advance a conservative agenda, and do all we can to win this fall. With that focus, we had a great conversation this morning. While we were honest about our few differences, we recognize that there are also many important areas of common ground.
“We will be having additional discussions, but remain confident there’s a great opportunity to unify our party and win this fall, and we are totally committed to working together to achieve that goal. We are extremely proud of the fact that many millions of new voters have entered the primary system, far more than ever before in the Republican Party’s history. This was our first meeting, but it was a very positive step toward unification.
Meanwhile, Speaker Ryan told journalists at a briefing that Trump and he had a very encouraging meeting. Here are some of the excerpts from the briefing that help clear some picture about the meeting.
“Look, it’s no secret that Donald Trump and I have had our differences. We talked about those differences today. That’s common knowledge.
The question is: What is it that we need to do to unify the Republican Party and all strains of conservative wings in the party? We had a very good and encouraging, productive conversation on just how to do that.
“It was important that we discussed our differences that we have. But it’s also important that we discussed the core principles that tie us all together; principles like the Constitution, the separation of powers, the fact that we have an executive that has gone way beyond the boundaries of the Constitution, and how it’s important to us that we restore Article I of the Constitution.
“You know, it’s the principle of self-government. We talked about life and how strongly we feel about this core principle. We talked about the Supreme Court and things like this.
“I was very encouraged with what I heard from Donald Trump today. I do believe that we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified, to bridge the gaps and differences. And so from here, we are going to go deeper into the policy areas to see where that common ground and how we can make sure that we are operating off the same core principles.
“And so, yes, I am — this is our first meeting. I was very encouraged with this meeting, but this is a process. It takes a little time. You don’t put it together in 45 minutes.
“So that is why we had, like I said, a very good start to a process on how we unify.”
“The process of unifying the Republican Party, which just finished a primary about a week ago — perhaps one of the most divisive primaries in memory — takes some time.
“Look, there are people who were for Donald Trump, who were for Ted Cruz, or for John Kasich, who were for Marco Rubio and everybody else. And it’s very important that we don’t fake unifying, we don’t pretend unification, that we truly and actually unify, so that we are full strength in the fall.
“I don’t want us to have a fake unification process here. I want to make sure that we really, truly understand each other and that we are committed to the conservative principles that make the Republican Party, that built this country. And again, I’m very encouraged.
“I heard a lot of good things from our presumptive nominee, and we exchanged differences of opinion on a number of things that, you know, everybody knows we have. There are policy disputes that we will have. There’s no two ways about it. Plenty of Republicans disagree with one another on policy disputes.
“But on core principles, those are the kinds of things we discussed. And again, I’m encouraged.”
